Present. January, first month. Twelfth day. Senior year. Last year. One hundred and eight days till the end of school. One hundred and eight days. Two thousand, five hundred and ninety two hours. One hundred and fifty five thousand, five hundred and twenty minutes. Nine million, three hundred and thirty one thousand, two hundred seconds. Almost like he could count them off, one by one.

Kurt could see the finishing line, the red tape glinting in the weak winter sunlight. He feared the break. His eyes began to water. He took another slow step into the school grounds. Every breath seemed to rock his small frame. With each exhale, Kurt felt a little piece of him fall off, floating by him like a feather, tracing its own path through the air, getting nowhere and everywhere at the same time. He smiled to himself. It was a new day. A cold, empty, new day.

"Hi." A long, slender set of fingers entered Kurt's eyeline as he was lost deep in thought. He raised pale, tired eyes to meet a pair that he had never encountered before. "My name's Blaine. I just transferred here."

Kurt stared for as long as he could, right into the depths of Blaine's soul; trying to read him, and his smile, and his caring eyes, and dark, gelled hair, and clear complexion and short stature. Kurt's eyes roamed across muscular arms, tan skin stretched across the contours of his body. Stocky legs, wide hips, and the thinnest waist he'd ever seen.

"I'm Kurt. Where'd you transfer from?"

Blaine took this as a cue to sit beside Kurt. It was calculus. Kurt's favourite lesson.

As Blaine smiled, desperately trying to meet Kurt's lowered gaze, Kurt accepted it. He accepted the change in seating arrangements. He accepted the company of Blaine. He sighed and rubbed a pale hand across his brow. Kurt's eyes felt heavy and weak; everything of his felt heavy and weak, especially today.

"I went to Dalton, but it was a little too... strict there for my liking."

Blaine's smile glittered in the glaring, artificial light, but it was the most beautiful thing Kurt had ever seen. Sharp pangs slit through his heart as he distantly remembered a similar smile radiating from his mother's face; but now that face was blurred, indistinct, and all of Kurt's memories of her seemed fragile, and he kept them locked away, alongside the persistent counting and his nagging thoughts, hair, the hair, Kurt, your hair, my god it's humid, you're going to look awful, where'd you put the hairspray? and that has too many calories, Kurt, you'll get fat and ugly and what would your mother say? put it down now.

"Listen, Kurt; I don't want to sound... forward, or anything, but I just wondered if  we could, you know, hang out? It's just, I don't know anyone-"

"Come to mine tonight, after school. My dad doesn't come home till late on Mondays."

Blaine stuttered, taken aback by Kurt's bluntness. The dull grey of Kurt's eyes seemed to part, and blue specks glistened in the awful light. He closed his eyelids and breathed in the cologne of the boy beside him.

"I haven't had a friend in a long, long time." It wasn't supposed to sound apologetic, or pitiful, or anything, really; Kurt was void. He was a monotonous creature, unforgiving and harsh, powerless and yet omnipotent. Chaotic yet ordered. Empty yet overflowing. 

However, Blaine gave an understanding smile, slight bow of the head, gentle pursing of the lips. Kurt heard the voices before he processed Blaine's intentions. You poor, sad, lonely, little boy.

---

Blaine stood beside Kurt as he searched under plant pots and rocks to find the key. Slightly bemused, he watched as Kurt whispered to himself, immaculate forehead creased with annoyance, full lips pursed with anger.

"How about we jimmy the window, Kurt?" Blaine laughed. "Are you sure this is your house?"

Kurt stood up straight, heat filling his cheeks. "Of course this is my house, dumbass. I'm not stupid. Though apparently, I'm stupid enough to lose my fucking key."

Blaine leaned against the edge of the house and observed Kurt's movements. A flush had broken out across the translucent skin of his neck. Blaine absently ran the tip of his tongue across his bottom lip. He found himself concentrating on the jagged protrusions of Kurt's spine, stretching the tight fabric of his dark blazer.

"Key under the mat. The key was under the mat. I saw it yesterday. Two days ago. Three days ago. I put it there. Under the mat. Key under the mat." The words were rushed whispers, like wind whistling through river reeds. Blaine didn't catch them. He listened to the wind and watched the clouds begin to gather behind the rooftops of the houses on the opposite side of the road.

"Found it yet?" 

"No. It was under the mat. Under the mat."

Blaine exhaled slowly, savouring the feel of the cold air against his lips, and the soft hair beneath his nose, where he had neglected whilst shaving that morning. Kurt's face seemed distorted, almost ugly in the fading light of the afternoon. Shadows seemed to cloak him, weigh his features down. His eyes seemed to sink into the pale flesh of his cheeks, hollow and translucent, painfully stretched across definitive cheekbones. An icy blue vein cut the left side of his face in half. As the sun disappeared behind the accumulating clouds, and the house suddenly loomed over the pair like a grumbling monster, Kurt seemed to emulate a glow. He was more beautiful than anyone Blaine had ever seen.

"Look, Kurt-" 

"It was here! Right here! I put it there. Blaine, it was there and now it's gone." The glow flared like headlights on a pitch black night. Blaine blinked once, twice, before staring evenly back at the flushing face of the boy before him. He seemed to contort, morphing from a normal human into an animal, a monster. 

Blaine couldn't deny that he was frightened of Kurt. Not just intimidated by him, his presence, his garish grin and wide eyes and painfully empty expression. Blaine was scared, terrified, nervous, anxious. Every move Kurt made, no matter how graceful or swift, Blaine wanted to crease up, roll himself up like a magic carpet and slot into the dusty attic out of harm's way. The glimmer in his eyes like unshed tears, the cracks in his gnawed bottom lip that reminded Blaine of unripe strawberries on cold mornings when his mother wore her straw hat and smiled the smile he forgot. 

Kurt was sad and lonely and empty, but Blaine was scared. Because he dominated. Kurt was powerful, and overbearing, and Blaine would drop to his knees before a boy he had only known for a day. He wondered what a lifetime with a friend like Kurt would amount to. He could imagine ice cream dripping, cold noses, rosy complexions and kissing behind a frosted window. He imagined warm soup and warmer blankets, fuzzy images on blown up screens with the volume turned up and the lights turned down. Blaine saw all this in minutes, seconds, and the redness in Kurt's face, his angry, angry face blossoming and burning and kindling a fire in the depths of Blaine's chest, stomach, genitals, until he felt smothered, choking, drawing in air like he had forgotten to breathe. 

He'd forgotten to breathe.

A tiny shake of the head cleared his rampant thoughts and brought Blaine back to the present. Leaning against the doorframe, watching a dishevelled, panicking Kurt Hummel search desperately for a key that was doomed to be lost forever. Cloudy skies and dark shadows emanating.

"I'm fairly good at picking locks."

---

"Coffee?"

Blaine smiled politely. He tried to wipe his expression clean, willing himself to imitate Kurt's ever so empty face, but Blaine was very much full. 

"Just a glass of water will suffice, Kurt." A glass was nudged in fornt of him. "Thanks." It was cold, but Blaine wished there were ice cubes. He loved the sound of cascading ice cubes in a frosted tumbler. "You have a lovely house."

"My dad has a lovely house," Kurt corrected. He folded a dish cloth, pulled it open, folded it back up. He seemed to be lost in thought. 

Eventually Kurt looked up, catching the eye of his bewildered guest. His eyes seemed to widen as Kurt's narrowed. "Why do you look so frightened?"

Blaine cleared his throat with a gulp of water. The silent slosh of liquid seemed desolate and old. Blaine felt like an old man, aging ten years every second, every movement creaking in the depths of his soul, echoing through his empty eardrums. Kurt's eyes bore into him like drills, screwing with him, his thoughts, the secret door located in the folds of an impressively large brain.

He eventually said, "Because you're the most frightening person I've ever met."

Kurt smiled. Blaine found himself unravelling at the mere sight. "But you don't even know me."

"I feel like I already know you better than I know myself."

Another smile. Blaine's train of thought returned to ice cubes, and clinking, smashing glass. "I think everyone's a stranger to themselves."

Blaine drained his glass. "I think you're right."

Suddenly, without warning, Kurt was on him, surrounding him, breathing him in. Literally breathing him in. Blaine felt the tip of Kurt's nose graze across his temple and down his cheek, sliding over his jaw and nestling in the folds of his neck, inhaling deeply. Kurt's eyes fluttered closed, and his hands opened to press cold palms onto Blaine's shoulderblades, jutting sharply through his shirt.

Blaine didn't know what to think. Neither did Kurt. It was like they were stuck in a timeless paradise, and minutes ticked by mindlessly. Inhale, exhale. Kurt's breaths were like dull thuds. Blaine felt his mind clenching, like he was gritting his teeth, and then he realised he was. The hands on his shoulderblades quivered.

"What are you thinking?" Blaine asked. It was an innocent question. Kurt wasn't an innocent person.

"I'm thinking that I wish I was far, far away, and that I never had to come back." 

"Oh."

"I wish I wasn't Kurt Hummel." Silence. "I wish I wasn't here." More silence. Blaine's breath caught in his throat. His lungs ballooned. His stomach shrunk. "I wish I was different."

And with that, he pulled away. And the glasses were in the sink, and the dish cloth was knotted in pale fists, and his eyes were cast down. 

"Will you come with me tomorrow to get a new key cut?"

Blaine took a few seconds to answer. He breathed out shakily. He had never been so scared in his life. Never. "I'll go anywhere with you."

And he meant it. And he knew Kurt knew it as well.

---

Kurt was adjusting to life with Blaine. It was different to say the least, but Kurt was accepting. He couldn't not. He couldn't deny Blaine's affection, and he couldn't ignore the happiness Blaine caused within him.

Kurt also couldn't ignore the seething jealousy that nestled inside Kurt's corrupted mind.

Everyday he saw Blaine, and he saw perfection. He stared into honey eyes, and watched gorgeous hips sway and tiny feet tiptoe through the halls. He stroked olive skin and smoothed dark curls and held soft hands and grasped the tiniest waist Kurt had ever known. Blaine was perfect, to the T. And Kurt loved him.

He wasn't sure what type of love it was. He knew Blaine was his friend, more than an acquaintance, though not much more, and he knew he was nothing like his dad, and nowhere near as important to him as his mom, but Blaine was somewhere. He wasn't just a blip on the radar. He was an avalanche on the tallest, eeriest mountain. He was a steaming hot chocolate on a freezing cold night. He was salvation, and he was happiness. For the time being.

Kurt wasn't very often happy. His mother made him happy, and when she died, her cookbooks made him happy. But they also damaged him. And Kurt became this worn out toy, a wounded soldier. He stood in a line of other broken souls and he couldn't tell himself from the others. He needed salvation, and he needed happiness.  Blaine provided both. So did being in control of himself, of his food and calorie consumption. But he swore he wouldn't. He couldn't do that to himself, to his dad, to his Blaine.

Nevertheless, Kurt found himself counting. He couldn't stop himself. Burt forgot to notice, and Blaine didn't understand. Kurt didn't have anyone else. 

As Burt washed the dishes, and Kurt sat hunched over his favourite textbook, Burt smiled to himself. "It's good to see you're studying hard, Kurt."

Kurt didn't answer. He wasn't studying. He wasn't listening. He had gone blank.

Numbers rushed at him from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Words, pinpricks on satin sheets, screams and shouts and sirens blaring and dark spots appeared and suddenly Kurt couldn't even breathe.

"I need Blaine."

Burt looked up. "What's that, kiddo?"

"I need to talk to Blaine."

Thus commenced the thirty minute sprint down darkening roads, dim yellow-orange lights illuminating stress and anger and fear, streaming down Kurt's face like salty bullets, pain and pain and pain like papercuts and broken glass.

It was all-consuming. Overpowering. Kurt was dominating, in control of his father, Blaine, but he was wrong. He was weak. Worthless. Nothing.

Facts and figures and numbers and words whirred around his brain. Did you know avocados have twice as much potassium as bananas? Did you know broccoli has twice as much vitamin C as an orange?

Calories calories calories. Kurt found them useless. Horrifying. Good calories? no such thing. Kurt wanted to curl up and die. Dinner was grilled chicken caesar salad. Did he have dressing? Was the salad dry? Was the chicken seasoned? Calories calories calories. 

Suddenly the ground was swallowing him up, and Kurt's feet were bleeding and his eyes aching and his cheeks were wet and where the fuck did Blaine live and why was the ground so soft and the air so cold and the silence so deafening-

Kurt woke up at home, in bed, Burt sitting in a chair beside him. He slept heavily, a hand resting against the bedcovers, fingers twisted into a loosened fist. His eyes were dark red. Kurt thought of blood in his vomit. He thought about a lot of things.

"I need Blaine."

---

At school, everything was the same. Nothing ever changed, and this was why Kurt could go to that godforsaken place every weekday and not feel a thing.

The lessons were boring, the work too easy, and the classrooms were all too quiet and loud. The students were bossy and angry, broken one moment, fixed the next. The lack of consistency disturbed Kurt. 

The only class Kurt and Blaine shared was calculus, and Kurt didn't mind, because Blaine was clever, and Kurt felt normal. Derivatives. Integrals. 

Numbers. 

Questions and answers. Formulas and solutions. Easy. Logical. Calculus was Kurt's favourite.

At lunch, Kurt would stare forlornly at his next-to-empty tray as he sat with various people that all faded into one large gaping hole in the forefront of Kurt's vision. The only face he recognized was Blaine's, and it was the most envious face in the cafeteria. 

Blaine bounded closer, his tray bobbing effortlessly over waves of crashing heads and flailing arms like drowning victims. Kurt wished for their next breath to be their last, their hands falling limp across the foreheads that swayed like tidal currents.

"Hey, Kurt. You weren't at school for a couple of days; why no phonecall? I was going to call you, but I didn't want to impose, and I guessed if you weren't feeling well, maybe I should just let you rest..."

Kurt touched a warm hand to an even warmer chest. Blaine's body moved like a rippling wave, and all at once he became part of the hole, the sea of people that Kurt resented, hated, willed to cease existing. But he snapped back, and Kurt realised Blaine was more than a wave. He was the entire ocean.

Kurt smiled, and Blaine dropped onto the bench beside him. Kurt resumed breathing normally. He stared back down at his next-to-empty tray.

"Not hungry?"

"I'm never hungry."

Blaine took a bite of a chicken fillet. He used his fingers. Kurt smiled again.

"You really should eat something, especially if you're recovering from an illness." Blaine was so sincere, so beautiful, so perfect. Kurt really couldn't tell how he loved him. 

Kurt sighed. His smile faltered, but it stayed on his face, like an electric lamp flickering. Power surge. Power cut. Snap.

He felt watery. His celery limbs seemed to clap and break and twitch, yet he kept on smiling. Blaine really was so lovely. Kurt knew Blaine thought the same in return. He stopped smiling.

"Did you know that broccoli has twice as much vitamin C than an orange?"

Blaine's face broke in half as he smiled. He chewed the rest of his chicken fillet, and Kurt could watch him swallow. He imagined the calories, and knew it didn't matter, because Blaine was so small. So thin. Blaine could eat everything, because he was thin.

"Is that so? Wow, Kurt. That's really something."

 Kurt nodded. "Vitamin C deficiency can cause weight loss."

"Oh really?"

"I don't like broccoli."

Blaine laughed. "You're so funny, Kurt. I like that about you."

"I like you too, Blaine."

Though he didn't want to, and he hated himself for giving in, for being weak and stupid and wrong, Kurt always ate lunch with Blaine. Though he ate little, and took comfort in the fact he consumed less than Blaine, he was eating. It was more than most days. It was more than normal.

Kurt forgot - this was normal. Blaine was now normal.

Kurt swallowed his last mouthful of baby potatoes and carrots. He had requested them to be pan fried without butter. He dreaded to think what quantity of oil the carrots were submerged in whilst they cooked.

He closed his eyes, opened them. Nothing had changed, not really. He hadn't gained ten pounds. He wasn't fat. Blaine wasn't missing and the wave of people was still washing over him like the weight of the world. Nothing had changed.

Was this progress? Kurt didn't think. He just watched Blaine's lips as he talked, and talked, and he wondered whether he was happy.

"Are you okay, Kurt?"

And Kurt smiled, and he meant it. "I'm okay, Blaine. I'm okay."

It was hard to convince Blaine of anything, and Kurt saw the creases on his forehead and pretended they were permanent. He imagined Blaine in twenty years time, and knew he'd be beautiful. Blaine would one day be the perfect husband for someone who deserved him. Someone who loved him more than Kurt didn't know.

"Well, if you're sure. You're really acting strange today." 

Kurt replied rather slowly, "I just have a lot to think about."

Blaine pushed his tray away from him and leaned closer. "You want to think out loud?"

"Not really. " Kurt smiled a sad smile. He knew it was the smile he used to wear when women he didn't know would ask him how he was when his mother had just died. 

"I'm always here." Blaine's hand closed around Kurt's, and it felt like magic. Kurt forgot about counting, and he forgot online facts about food. He forgot about purging, and binging, and starving. He forgot about crying at night when he just wasn't okay, and sitting in his mother's dressing room where he couldn't bring himself to let Burt pack all her things away.

What he remembered were summer days when Elizabeth would laugh and the monsters were locked inside the closet and the sun warmed all of Kurt, not just his skin. He remembered having a heart, and a mind, and kissing the ground and reaching for the sky and clasping blue in his hands and believing he had the power to rule it all. 

He stared into Blaine's eyes and felt at home. He felt a warmth. 

"I know," was all he could reply.

As Kurt returned home that evening, with the memory of Blaine's hand clapped against his shoulder, the movement reverberating through his bones, a ghost of a smile hovered across his features. 

"Kurt, s'that you?"

Kurt dropped his bag, kicked off his shoes, stared at the dark floor. Baby potatoes and carrots seemed to coat his mouth. "Yeah, Dad, it's me."

He followed the sound of the television, no longer women's chat shows, exclusively football games, hockey games, sports that require brute force and a ton of muscle. Kurt shivered as he imagined the protein shakes and over-consumption of calories.

"Hey, kiddo. How was your day back at school?"

Kurt sat beside Burt and threaded their fingers together. Burt's hand was so calloused, so thick, so warm and comforting. Kurt found himself melting into the couch, pale skin sticking to dark leather, mixing like neapolitan ice cream.

"It wasn't anything special." Silence. "Blaine missed me."

Burt raised an eyebrow, but didn't look up from the television. Fat men seemed to grapple. The taste of baby potatoes and carrots burned the back of Kurt's nostrils. "Oh?"

"Yeah. He wondered why I didn't call."

"What did you say?"

"What does it matter?"

Burt sighed. His eyes didn't leave the screen. "Of course it matters. He's your friend. Maybe one day he'll be a little more than that. I don't know."

"He's just a person. He doesn't need to know."

"I didn't say he did. I just thought, maybe you should want him to know."

Kurt felt the air swelling in his throat. He swallowed dryly and closed his eyes. The sound of the television seemed to fade to white noise. Burt breathed loudly beside him. 

"Dad." Pause. Kurt cleared his throat. Another pause. "I'm fine."

"Kurt." This time, Burt leaned forward to grab the remote. The television turned off. Kurt started to panic. The white noise remained. "I'm worried for you, bud. I know you don't want to hear it, not again, not after all those years... look. Son. I want you to be okay; I want you to be the happiest kid alive. I want to give you back the childhood that was stolen away from you."

"Just don't..."

"Kurt." His tone was stern, sincere, angry yet sad. Kurt hadn't cried in front of his father for years, but suddenly his tear ducts were warm and his cheeks seemed to burn with anticipation.

"I don't want to hear it," Kurt said.

Burt pulled away from his son, like the touch of his cool hand against his own calloused palm was painful. He scratched at the empty spaces between his fingers anxiously. "You're my son, and I love you. And last week, when you ran out of here, you were... you weren't my Kurt. You weren't human. I just want you to be good again, kid. I just want you back."

One tear fell. And then another. Kurt silently blinked, ignoring the bile at the back of his throat. He subconsciously stroked a hand over the concave of his stomach. "I haven't gone anywhere, Dad. And I'm never going to leave you ever again. I could never do that to you."

Burt smiled the sad smile that Kurt had worn earlier that day, the one he used to wear when old women used to ask how he missed his mother. He missed her everyday, and every kind word was another hair pulled from Kurt's head. It was another finger clawing at the back of his throat. Kurt let another tear fall.

"Kurt, I know you never meant to do it. You didn't choose to be like this. I just really don't know what to say to make it go away." Burt seemed too old, too hard to cry. 

He was a man, a real man, with dirt under his fingernails and grease smeared down his neck and he watched sports and he screamed at the players like they could hear him. Kurt admired his father's strength and yet respected his fragility. Burt was a frail, aging man, who lost his wife and his son on the same day. That isn't something you come to terms with quickly; especially when he has to stare into the empty eyes of his faraway son and pretend like he had never been any different.

The nostalgia stung. It was like a citrus scent, overwhelming him, choking him, stinging in the back of his throat and making his nose run. The idea that a long time ago everything had been okay had become a dream, a makebelieve version of the world Burt trudged through day after day.

Kurt dried his eyes and laid a weary, heavy head against Burt's shoulders. "I love you, Dad."

"Let's just forget it, bud. How about we order in pizza?" Burt said.

"I'd like that a lot," Kurt said.

Kurt waited until he could hear the soft snores emanating from the main bedrom of the house before he slumped on the bathroom floor, his forehead creased and his cheeks flushed red. His eyes burned. His heart was jumping from his chest to his stomach to the base of his skull. He could hear the seconds, minutes ticking away, each moment causing him to quiver like he was a cymbal that had been struck with a mallet. He shook from head to toe. The side of the bath was cold, and pressed against Kurt's cheek almost calmed him. Almost to the point where he could have returned to bed and dreamed about calculus and Blaine and brand new capri pants.

Pizza. Kurt had eaten pizza. All that grease, and cheese, and carbs and fat. Kurt began to shake. The edge of the bath warmed against his skin. 

"Just don't do it, Kurt." He smiled to himself. It wasn't a happy smile, or a sad smile, or even an empty, lonely smile. It was pain. It was hurtful. It was angry and pitiful and Kurt loved it. "You don't have to care about being skinny anymore, Kurt. Why does it matter?"

His voice from previous that evening seemed to ring in his ears. The white noise returned. Black spots danced in front of him, like agitated flies, and Kurt swatted lazily at them. His stomach seemed to twist and turn and his bowels ached. His chest felt empty. His heart seemed to have relocated to the soles of his shoes. 

"Just don't do it." He laughed to himself, lifting his head up to balance on his drooping shoulders, eyes half shut, mouth spread open, saliva dribbling down his chin. He laughed and he laughed and he laughed, because it wasn't that easy. It was never going to be that easy. There was no salvation. There was no happiness. All Kurt had was an empty toilet and a full stomach and it was wrong, wrong, wrong.

And as Kurt heaved, and tears mixed with sweat and spit and bile and pizza chunks, Kurt began to laugh. And it was a sad laugh. It meant that he accepted his demise, his eternal reign as the broken boy with the imperfect body. Kurt was sick. 

In his delirious state, numbly wiping vomit from the corners of his mouth, Kurt forgot that somewhere out in the wide, desolate world, there was probably someone with beautiful curly hair and the tiniest waist Kurt had ever known, willing to help. Kurt was blinkered. From the truth, from help, from life. And the end of the tunnel seemed to stretch beyond the horizon. Kurt heaved once more.  The end was still so far.